| Toni Schneiders | |
| Birth Date: | 27 April 1920 |
| Birth Place: | Urbar, Germany |
| Death Place: | Lindau, Germany |
| Known For: | Photography |
| Movement: | fotoform |
Toni Schneiders (May 13, 1920 – August 4, 2006) was a German photographer.
Toni Schneiders took up an apprenticeship as a photographer at Menzel Studio in Koblenz in 1935 graduating with a master's certificate in 1938. During the Second World War he was drafted and would join the Fallschirmjäger in 1942. He deployed as a war correspondent in France and Italy, famously capturing Operation Oak on film.[1]
After the war, he returned to Koblenz and photographed reportages as well as advertising and landscape photographs. In 1946 he moved to Meersburg, where he opened a photo studio in 1948. In 1949 Schneiders went to Lindau as an independent photojournalist, where he lived and worked with his wife Ingeborg from 1952 until his death in 2006. His archive is housed in the F. C. Gundlach Foundation[2] in Hamburg, his war photography in the German Federal Archive[3] in Koblenz.
In 1949 Schneiders co-founded the avant-garde photography group fotoform alongside Siegfried Lauterwasser, Peter Keetman, Wolfgang Reisewitz, Otto Steinert and Ludwig Windstoßer. With their graphically designed images, the fotoform photographers referred to the photographic trends of the 1920s and early 1930s and drew attention to the creative possibilities of photography. Toni Schneiders was also significantly involved in the development of the so-called subjective photography in the 1950s, which became internationally known through exhibitions and publications under the title Subjektive Fotografie[4] compiled by Otto Steinert. Until his death in 2005, Schneiders was in close contact with Peter Keetman. Toni Schneiders' images are distinguished from those of his companions by their sensitive capturing of people in everyday life.
Schneiders worked commercially for publishing houses that created photographic picture books on cities, countries and regions. From 1950 he travelled through Germany, Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia for these illustrated books.
Toni Schneiders published more than 100 photobooks, which are completely or partially illustrated with his images, e.g.:
etc.